“Been there, done that”: Ish Sodhi confident of New Zealand bouncing back after Sylhet Test defeat

Dhaka [Bangladesh], December 5 (ANI): New Zealand leg spinner Ish Sodhi has supported the “experienced heads” in his team to recover from the loss in the first Test match against Bangladesh.

The second Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand will begin on Wednesday in Mirpur.

New Zealand Test captain Tim Southee believes that his team didn’t bowl consistently in the proper places for long enough after they lost by 150 runs in Sylhet.

“The great success this [New Zealand] team’s had over the past decade has been being able to park these sort of things pretty quickly, whether it’s success or loss,” Sodhi was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

“That’s going to be tested though. It is never anything to take for granted. It is always hard to come back off the back of a loss. But with the experienced heads here, we’ve been there, we’ve done that. We know how to apply ourselves into the next games. Hopefully, that’s something that we can commit to really well and apply to this next game.

“It is obviously tough to come out on the losing side in that first game in Sylhet, but I think as the Test progressed, we found a bit more rhythm. Obviously, I haven’t played Test cricket in a while, so it’s always going to be tough in these conditions. The way that Bangladesh played, they certainly outplayed us. But upon reflection, I think they gave us a blueprint on what’s successful in these conditions, and hopefully we can apply that to this next Test match,” the spinner added.

In the first Test, Bangladesh scored 310 and 338 points, totals that Southee felt were higher than what New Zealand should have surrendered. Sodhi also urged the bowlers to be precise in order to level the two-Test series.

“It is about just working in partnerships and being a little bit more accurate. That’s something hopefully we can come together as a bowling group over the next couple of days – discuss as a spin bowling group, seam bowling group, whatever that looks like, and try to make improvements. It’s always going to be challenging, not playing a lot of Test cricket over a long period of time, but when you come together, [it is about] how quickly you can adapt,” the 31-year-old spinner said.

“Sometimes you wish you could have adapted sooner in the last game, but we can’t sort of look back now. We’ve got to try to find all the learnings that we had in that last game and apply them to this one, and hopefully, we can come out on the winning side,” Sodhi stated.

Sodhi, who took three wickets in Sylhet, will return to Mirpur for the second Test, which begins on Wednesday, where he took his highest ODI haul of 6 for 39 after hitting 35 off 39 balls with the bat against Bangladesh in September.

“Going into conditions where you have had a bit of success, you always have a bit more confidence going into games like that. It’ll just be about exposing the conditions as best as we can, figuring out whether it’s going to turn, or if it’s not, what that looks like for us in terms of attacking and defence. So I am really looking forward to the prospect of the second Test, but a couple of good hard days of practice beforehand,” he said.